


First Night

by Dira Sudis (dsudis)



Category: Numb3rs
Genre: College, Community: numb3rsflashfic, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2009-12-18
Updated: 2009-12-18
Packaged: 2017-10-04 14:20:05
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,372
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/31152
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dsudis/pseuds/Dira%20Sudis
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p><em>Three o'clock in New Jersey was only midnight in California.</em></p>
            </blockquote>





	First Night

**Author's Note:**

> Disclaimer: Charlie, Don, and Numb3rs belong to Cheryl Heuton, Nicolas Falacci, and some people at CBS who aren't me.
> 
> Beta thanks to Iulia!
> 
> This story was first posted July 26, 2006.

His mom asked him again as she was standing in the door whether he was sure he didn't want her to stay the night. Charlie put his chin up bravely and told her he'd be okay, and he'd see her in the morning, right? She smiled and hugged him one more time, kissed his forehead, and turned away, heading for the parking lot, her car, the apartment not five miles away where she'd be living this year while he was in school. Charlie closed the door behind her and stood there a while, counting off the seconds, the footsteps; she'd be downstairs now--she'd be out of the building--she'd be across the quad--

Charlie broke from his spot by the door and ran to the small window, the old glass wavy and greenish, pressing his hands and nose against it as he peered out. There was no sign of his mom, just college kids--_other_ college kids, older than him but no different--playing frisbee on the grass at dusk. Charlie grinned, and then laughed out loud. Princeton! He was at _Princeton_! By _himself_!

He turned away from the window and jumped up on the bed, which his mom had made all neat for him with blankets that looked just like the ones he had at home. It wasn't as springy as his own bed, and the ceiling loomed dangerously close, but he jumped up and down on it anyway, breathless with laughter, until the covers slipped away under his feet and he fell flat on the mattress, grinning up at the yellowed plaster ceiling. _Princeton_.

When he'd caught his breath, Charlie scrambled up to his feet and headed back toward the door. It had a mirror on the back, and Charlie paused there for a minute, squinting critically at himself, running a hand over his hair and tugging the hem of his t-shirt. Don had told him, _Don’t try to look like anything but a thirteen-year-old math dork, okay? It won't work if you do try, and girls will think you're cute._ Charlie grinned at the mirror and headed out into the hallway alone.

For the last two years, while Charlie was in high school, Don had been his translator, his native guide to the world of Big Kids. He'd never told his parents how bad things were, but every day, walking home, he'd described it to Don. Don would listen patiently, and then tell him what he should have said or done, or not said, or not done. He'd explained to Charlie what they thought of him, those other kids, and why, over and over. It had been the same lesson sometimes for weeks on end, until Charlie began to understand, or at least to have his strategies memorized.

When their parents had agreed to let Charlie go to Princeton--_Princeton_, where every student, even one as precocious as Charlie, was required to live on campus their first two years--Don had gotten kind of a funny look on his face, and he'd spent the whole summer sitting Charlie down and explaining things. It was like Don hadn't realized before then that he wouldn't be walking Charlie home forever, explaining things to him. Charlie tried to remember it all now, like he had an invisible Don whispering in his ear as he walked down the hall looking for open doors.

_Don't try too hard_, Don had told him. _Don't push yourself on anybody, just let them get used to you. You're a freak, but if you let them get used to you you'll be _their_ freak._ So Charlie roamed the halls, peeking his head around doorframes, saying hi, introducing himself, making dumb jokes about being thirteen, laughing and slipping away to the next room. The girls did smile at him more than the boys; a few even reached out and ruffled his hair, leading to some hasty, blushing escapes back to the hallway. One room held two boys even older than Don; one of them laughed at him and offered him a beer, and Charlie remembered all the things Don had said--about being small, about being smart--and took it, drank the first sip casually, in between the obligatory joke about Doogie Howser and the obligatory joke about his mom carrying his books. They laughed a little differently after that, and once he'd taken the first sip they didn't notice that he didn't drink any more. He left the can behind on the floor when he wandered off, and waited until he was around a corner to find a drinking fountain and rinse the taste out of his mouth.

He was tired but wide awake when he finally wandered back to his room and fell onto the bed. It was close to three in the morning; he'd stayed up later a few times, but not often. Not by himself. He looked toward the window, but it only reflected back the light from his room. The walls here were thick; he couldn't hear anything from out in the hall, or maybe there was nothing to hear. Everyone had to sleep sometime.

Charlie sat up and bounced a little on his bed. The blanket was mostly on the floor now; he stood and tugged it back into place, approximately. It was lumpy and crooked, even when he tried to straighten it. He sat back down. Bounced again. He was at Princeton--_Princeton!_\--and he'd introduced himself to everyone in his hall who he could find; girls had smiled at him, and he'd drunk beer. It was an accomplishment, he knew it was, but all it felt like was that he'd run out of people to talk to.

Three o'clock in New Jersey was only midnight in California. Don had gone up to school early, to train with the baseball team. Charlie had memorized the phone number to his dorm room long ago, and the numeric codes for dialing long distance just today. He stood up and went to the phone and started dialing, one sequence of numbers after another, until finally the phone began to ring. He wondered if Don would be out somewhere--walking the hallways, meeting his neighbors, drinking beer with them that he was old enough to start and finish--but on the sixth ring Don picked up and said, "Charlie?"

Charlie couldn't talk for a minute, his throat going tight. _This_ was homesickness, then; not the butterfly-shake of his stomach for the last three days, but this sudden sick emptiness. He held on tight to the phone, stretching the cord so that he could go sit on the bed again, dragging the blanket up over his knees. "Yeah," he said finally, in a small voice, and rubbed fiercely at his eyes. He wasn't going to cry on the phone to Don. Nothing was even wrong.

"Big first night, huh?" Don said, easily, filling up the silence of two thousand seven hundred ninety-four miles stretching between them. "Mom know you're up past your bedtime?"

"She left," Charlie said. In his head it sounded like bragging, but coming out of his mouth it sounded like another walk home with Don, telling him what had gone wrong today. He cleared his throat and tried again. "I met almost everybody in my hall, though. They're pretty cool."

"Yeah?" Don said. "Any other math nerds around?"

"A couple," Charlie said. "This girl Sasha's pretty smart. And Brian's in engineering, we talked calc a little."

Don snorted and Charlie smiled. Don always said that he didn't see what there was to _talk about_ in math--it was just something you _did_. Charlie told him once, _So's baseball_. "Good," Don said, and then, "I gotta get to bed, buddy, okay? Early practice tomorrow."

"Yeah," Charlie said. He was listing sideways, his brain spinning away from Don's voice to calculate the angle as he drooped. "I should--" he yawned, and Don laughed.

"Sleep tight, Charlie."

"Night," Charlie said. He laid the phone down and sank onto the bed, closing the angle down to nothingness as he achieved the horizontal. When he woke up the phone was beeping on the floor, and the light of his first morning at Princeton was shining through the window.


End file.
